Who is the Berzerker Most Suited To?

The Berzerker is best for anyone who likes to ride fast and carve up the mountain and likes to hit powder when they can too.

Not for a beginner – way too stiff/aggressive for a beginner.

Not for freestyle riding either. This is a board for riding fast, carving and getting into deeper snow.

The Berzerker in More Detail

O.k. let’s take a more detailed look at what the Berzerker is capable of.

Demo Info

Board: Ride Berzerker 2019, 162 (250mm waist)

Date: April 14, 2018

Conditions: With 27cm of fresh snow in the 24 hours prior there was plenty of fresh snow about. Visibility (at least the part of the mountain where I was riding) was great. There was a bit of wind (which was surprisingly cold for April) but only noticed it on the chair lift. It was around -8 degrees with wind chill.

Bindings angles: +15/-15

Stance width: 570mm (22.4”)

Stance Setback: 20mm (1”)

Width at Inserts: 256mm at front insert (10.08“) and 257mm (10.12”) at back insert.

The narrowest board I’ve ridden in a 162. But this was designed for Jake Blauvelt and he likes his board narrow, apparently.

Flex

Ride rate this as a “medium response” but it felt to me like it was stiffer than medium. I would say 7/10, or even bordering on a little stiffer than that on snow.

Powder

Felt pretty good in powder, and I had plenty to test it in on the day I rode it.

Not what I would call a super floater but decent. The rocker in the nose helps, and the 20mm setback also helps. But it is quite a narrow board. I rode the 162 and its only 250mm at the waist and only 256mm at the front insert and 257mm at the rear insert. It does get out to 300mm at the tip and tail, so it gets wider quickly after the inserts, but still overall less surface area than a lot because of that narrow-ness.

And its not super setback and there’s no taper, but the nose is longer than the tail. So overall, good, but not amazing in powder.

Carving & Turning

Carving is the Berzerker’s best asset (that and speed). The turn radius took a little to get used to but once I got what it was trying to do, it was a fun board to carve on.

Not overly catchy, but also not the easiest to skid turns on.

Edge to edge speed was pretty good, unless you were trying to ride slow. Agility and edge-to-edge speed at low speeds weren’t the greatest. This board prefers speed.

Speed

This board prefers to ride at speed and felt very stable at speed. At speed the edge-to edge speed was very good. Ride this board at speed and it it’s very fun ride.

Let’s Break up this text with a Video

Uneven Terrain

It was average in uneven terrain.

Jumps

Didn’t get a feel for this board on jumps – whether they were in the park or for natural hits.

For anything that required a slow-ish approach, it didn’t have the agility (if it was a relatively tricky approach to a side hit, for example). For the approach to bigger jumps, it was great and nice and stable but the landings didn’t feel as good – maybe because of the narrower nature of it.

It wasn’t devoid of pop, but felt like you needed to really give it some to get pop out of it. It felt a little heavy in the air, and that also made it a little more difficult to spin.

Switch

The camber is directional – basically all camber to the tail and a bit of rocker in the nose, after the inserts. So, it felt a little weird riding switch – having rocker in the tail but none in the nose. There’s also the setback and the longer nose vs tail.

It wasn’t impossible to ride switch, but did feel a bit weird (unsurprisingly).

Jibbing/Buttering

Not what this board was designed for at all, and not easy to either hit jibs with or to butter.

Score Breakdown and Final Verdict

Check out the breakdown of the score in the table below.

FACTOR

rating (OUT OF 5)

contribution to final score

Carving/Turning

4.0

20/25

Speed

4.0

16/20

Jumps

3.​0

9/15

Powder

3.5

10.5/15

Uneven Terrain

3.0

6/10

Pipe

3.0

6/10

Switch

3.0

3/5

TOTAL after normalizing

79.2/100

The Berzerker was really fun to ride at times but was overall quite one-dimensional. Ride it fast and carve it up on good snow, or take it through some fresh powder – and you’ll wonder how anyone could consider this a below average board.

But for anything else, it wasn’t as fun. And it’s not quite setup for or good enough at things like speed, carving, powder, to warrant being considered a more specialist freeride board. Add some taper and increase the setback and it might fit better in the freeride category.

But it is reasonably priced, so if you’re looking for an aggressive all-mountain board/bordering on freeride, for a price point quite a lot (over $100 cheaper) lower than the average for this style of board, then the Berzerker fits that criteria well.

More Info, Current Prices and Where to Buy Online

If you want to learn more about the Berzerker, are ready to buy or want to research prices and availability, check out the links below.

About Nate

Nate is passionate about and loves learning new things everyday about snowboarding, particularly the technical aspects of snowboarding gear. That, and becoming a better rider and just enjoying and getting the most out of life.

Width-wise, the Berzerker is a narrow board. So, there’s a question mark there for 9s, on the 156. But, depending on your binding angles you should be OK. If you ride with a really straight back foot, and like to get really deep into your carves, then it might be getting a bit narrow. But if you ride with a bit of angle on your back foot and have low profile boots and/or have more moderate carves, then I think the 156 would be fine width wise and that’s the size I would go with.

I have just undergone a transfer of the website to a new host, and I get an email notification of the following comment you added to the Jones Flagship Review. I think it somehow got lost in the transition, so I will answer it here and hopefully you will receive notification of this. Your comment was:

Hi, I am 1.71cm height ,73kg weight and i wear us 9 size boots. I think it’s 158 or 154 length. Can you give me an advice please?

It’s a tough call between the 154 and 156 for the Flagship for you. Very close between them. The 246mm waist on the 154 Flagship isn’t really a concern like it might be on the Berzerker. The width at inserts compared to waist on the Flagship is more compared to the Berzerker, so you get a bit more leeway there, and I think it would probably be wide enough. The 158 would give you more leeway width-wise. The other thing about going 158, is that, for this type of board, it can be a good idea to go a little longer, if you’re going to be riding it in a lot of deep powder (to get more float) and riding fast (for more stability). The 154 will have it’s advantages though – like being more agile at slower speeds, better in trees.

If I had to choose, I’d say go 158. But 154 wouldn’t be a wrong choice either, depending on what you value more.

I have just undergone a transfer of the website to a new host, and I get an email notification of the following of your reply. I think it somehow got lost in the transition, so I will answer it here and hopefully you will receive notification of this. Your comment was:

Thank you!
Unfortunately, I only have 159 for sale:((
My binding angles is 15/15
I choose between Jones Flagship(154/158) or Ride Berzker(159)
Speed, build quality, carving is important to me. (Mountain 80%, Powder-20%)

I would go for the 158 Flagship (as per my other reply) – after that I would go 154 Flagship. If Berzerker, then 156 (which unfortunately you don’t have).

I don’t own a Jones board, so I haven’t had the chance to test them for durability, so I couldn’t say.

None of the Jones boards that I’ve demoed (which have sometimes been ridden a fair bit before I get on them) have shown signs of poor build quality though – neither on the base or anywhere else. They feel and look quality to me. But like I say, I haven’t had a Jones board long enough to determine anything about their durability/build quality.

Recent Comments

Follow us!

Snowboardingprofiles.com participates in affiliate programs and may earn commissions on products linked to on this site. More Details

Snowboardingprofiles.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.